


your past is not an anchor

by 0fficiallyLeah



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF James T. Kirk, Genius!Kirk, M/M, More tags coming as the story continues, Past Child Abuse, Slow Build, Smart Kirk, Starfleet Academy, Tarsus IV
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-06 15:32:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 12,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12820566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0fficiallyLeah/pseuds/0fficiallyLeah
Summary: "Your past has guided you to where you are today, but it is not an anchor."Jim Kirk is a rare individual. He is one of the few to know what it’s like to be invisible while in the spot light.





	1. Bruises & Brains

**Author's Note:**

> I do not own anything pertaining to Star Trek.  
> This is might first Star Trek attempt. Genius Kirk is like my ULTIMATE favorite, and I've read stories were it was hinted at or partially touched on but I'd like to explore it more. So I'm taking bits and pieces of some of my favorite fics to hopefully make a bigger and better story. So I'm not trying to steal anyones ideas and I want to give credit where credits due. However, I am getting into troupes and clichés and overworked ideas too so I'm not going to link any one story to this bc like I said I'm taking little things that I loved about A BUNCH of fics I read. 
> 
> Also comments and critiques are welcomed. I want to keep these guys in character as best I can.

James Kirk is a rare individual. He is one of the few to know what it’s like to be invisible while in the spot light.

Surrounded by eyes constantly watching but never really seeing him, never caring.

James T. Kirk was born a minute before his father died, inside a slightly damaged escape pod. The radiation from the Kelvin’s explosion and the simple effect of the black closing in around them was the first thing people overlooked. The second was after the nurse took him away to clean him up, Winona never asked for him back. An no one knew about the simple chance that a doctor who had survived from the Kelvin had stopped by her temporary quarters mere days after landing and noticed that James was having an allergic reaction to the formulas she had been feeding him since returning to Earth.

James grew up alone. He had Winona who waited until he was four to remarry before escaping back to the black. Even when she was home she never smiled, never stayed in the same room as him for long, never ruffled is hair as she was leaving like she did Sam. And every year, the older he got, the more people watched him as the day of the Kelvin's destruction, not his birthday, never his birthday, grew closer. No matter how many eyes there were, they still never saw. They didn't see how Winona held and comforted Sam with her back to James.

He had Sam who never really knew how to connect with his little brother; never really bothered to try. Sam had trouble getting over the shock of losing his dad, his hero, but gaining a brother at the same moment. The two events would ever be connected in his young brain. And at five, when his mom came home with a colic baby and no dad, no cool space stories, no welcome home hugs, that seed of discontent was planted in him and it only grew as James did.

The only one in that old farm house on the outskirts of Riverside, Iowa, that talked to him was Frank – his stepdad. And it was never kind words, never affectionate touches. He was a brute: mean and hard and angry. His wife had left him with two brats to take care of and barely any money to do it; definitely not enough for drinks and food.

Winona checked in once a month, though she never asked about James. She praised Sam for his science fair project and his A on his spelling test. They’d talk for an hour before she’d have to go. Sam started to blame James for the reason his mom was always gone, for the reason Frank was in their lives.

James wasn’t angry. In all honesty he didn’t really feel anything, he was just numb inside. After the third beating he got for burning his dinner and filling the house with smoke, because at six he had trouble gauging how long to cook things and Sam had stop making sure he was getting meals, James looked up directions to build a replicator and found the parts at the local junk yard. He kept it in the attic where he spent most of his time when he wasn’t in school. Almost all of his mom and dad’s old textbooks from Starfleet on top of his dad's collections of real books were kept up there. He read about engineering and command and figured his dad minored in communications if all the books about different languages meant anything and he found books about advanced maths that must have belonged to his mother that discussed things like the warp core and navigations. When he got frustrated because he couldn’t quite grasp a concept or struggled with the proper pronunciation of Andorian, he’d take a break and escape into the world of Shakespeare or Jane Austen.

At school James worked out an agreement with most of his teachers in elementary school. He sat in the back of the room and after he’d finished the assignments he could spend the rest of the time reading books the teachers had checked out from the high school library. Though he didn’t find advanced calculus or high school biology as interesting as Starfleet courses, he did find they were easier for him to understand and as the years passed he found that the more he worked through these problems the easier he understood the concepts from the academy books.

Sam left the summer before sixth grade. He was fifteen, about to start high school and all he had was a sack on his back and a black eye from his last fight with Frank. They’d fought over finances. Frank was wasting money on whiskey and beer instead of food and Sam was fed up. Neither knew that James had only been eating a meal and a snack a day, afraid that if he ate more Frank would find out about his replicator and destroy it. The idea of taking James with him never even crossed Sam’s mind.

Frank beat the shit out of James when he found out about Sam. Winona stopped sending money when she found out Sam was gone; she stopped calling altogether because she still never wanted to talk to James. The teachers at school noticed the colors that stained his body, but never spoke on it. They allowed him to bring the textbooks from the attic to class with him since he’d run out of other material for them to give him. They’d tried throughout the years to send letters to Winona about him jumping grades, but she never responded to them, so he was left in the back of the classroom to work on his own.

It was during spring break that he got fed up with everything. Frank had beat him once again for no reason other than James had tripped over an empty bottle and landed on the squeaky step on the stairs. When he cried out as Frank’s boot slammed into his back while he was curled up on the ground, James realized that was the first time he’d spoken in two weeks and something in his eleven year old heart broke.

He didn’t plan to jump out of the car as it started to careen into the quarry, until a voice on the wind whispered – _don’t let them win_. And then he was soaring.

After that things moved quickly for a while. Frank pressed charges. Winona couldn’t be reached. A teacher, Ms. Polly Carter, came forward to talk about bruises and brains. He never knew what the judge saw in him, if she saw a lost boy with potential and dealt a bad hand or if it was simply because he was George Kirk’s son, either way she dropped the charges so they wouldn’t be on his permanent record, but awarded temporary custody to an aunt he’d never met before who lived off planet and had enough connection to get a message to the Honorable Judge Rumstead before his trial about the matter. In less than 72 hours of literally taking a leap of faith, James was charged, sentenced, and on a shuttle bound for Tarsus IV.


	2. Coffee & Calculations

Jim had only just moved back to San Francisco after being away a year. He worked most days at a coffee shop barely a block away from Starfleet Academy and worked nights bartending at a bar two blocks the opposite direction.

Sometimes he was convinced his jobs were the only reason his roommate, Bones, ever put up with him – Jim provided a continuous line of discount coffee before Bones had to start his shifts at the hospital and the same thing for scotch when he was off work. It was only the drunken heart to heart ramblings Bones shared with him at night when he was scared of being a bad father and his obsessive tendencies for Jim’s health that proved to Jim that Bones was planning on sticking around for as long as he could. They both knew that after Bones graduated from Starfleet in two years he’d be posted on a ship and someone else would have to learn how to handle Jim’s many and outrages allergies.

Generally they were pretty good at ignoring it, mainly because Jim knew his mind couldn’t be changed, but every now and then Bones would try to convince him to enroll. Lord knows he had the qualifications and the pedigree to get in. Except Bones was the only one who knew about his being one of _those_ Kirk. It was hard to hide from a medical personnel given his age and the fact his files talked about exposure to minimum radiation at birth. The pieces weren’t too hard to put together after that. Bone was smart enough to never even bring up his birthday besides happening to have purchased a fancy bottle of scotch that he needed help drinking.

Jim took his Aunt’s married name when he got to the colony when he was eleven. She wanted to give him a fresh start, to free him from the notoriety of being a Kirk.  He carried that small gift she’d given him with him to this day - even if it was only on paper now.

 

\\\//\\\//\\\//\\\//\\\//

 

It was a slow Tuesday. There were fewer occupants in the coffee house, showcasing that most of the cadets were more focused on meeting with study groups for the upcoming term exams as opposed to getting their caffeine fix.  However, Jim knew it was the calm before the storm once the month was over and the official month of finals arrived, the little business would be flooded with bright red uniforms of students who needed both coffee and to study non-stop. He wasn’t worried, bored, but not worried.

It was while he was bored, and wiping down the counter, that he heard Gaila muttering equations under her breath. Judging from the was she’d been smacking her calculator earlier he assumed she wasn’t able to work out whatever she was working on in long hand. She stared blankly at the PADD under her hand, the stylus clinched tightly between her teeth.

Normally she was here with ‘I’m-not-telling-you-my-first-name’ Uhura, and while her glare wasn’t strong enough to keep him from shamelessly flirting with the Orion cadet, it was enough to keep him from helping them work out whatever new problem classes had given them that week. He blamed her absence on his poor impulse control – it was only fair.

Instead he quickly wrote down the answer to the formula equation that was simply a mix of computer code and engineering sense (the track he knew Gaila was set on) on to a napkin and slid it to her as he walked toward the register.

From the was she’d been grumbling at the possibly broken calculator, he figured she knew enough about the answer she was trying to reach to recognize the correct solution he’d given her. He knew that with how complicated the different maths used regularly when dealing with a starship were, that most people simply relied on computers to take the necessary information and process the answer. Doing it long hand was difficult because one simple mistake could throw the whole thing off. He didn’t know why she was trying to work it out here instead of using one of said computers that were available to students on campus.

The extreme silence that followed him was enough to make him twitch when he went to fill new orders, but he refused to look back at her until he was done. The second class of the day had just let out and people tended to stop in for a snack or a pick me up before carrying on with their day. When it was clear again, he finally turned toward her. She wasn’t paying him a lick of attention as she typed away at her laptop, but her PADD full of what looked like calculations was turned facing his side of the counter. He grabbed the stool from by the cash register and settled in.

She started him out easier than the first one he’d solved, but gradually they increased in difficulty. Most he didn’t bother to show his work, it felt a bit like when he was in elementary school and he moved quickly through addition and subtraction, to long division, and onto calculus II. It was definitely getting more advanced, just not necessarily harder. Most of it he could work through mentally, but he guessed she was working on some kind of thesis and might need the actual steps. He finished the work quickly and silently and within the hour there was nothing else for him to focus on. Gaila didn’t say anything when she looked over the PADD after he handed it back, just simply raised one eyebrow and then went back to her work.


	3. Spock & Secrets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the characters are fighting for their own version of the story so there may be some things that change here and there before everything is all said and done. I know that could make things confusing, but they're not going to be huge plot points. I've got an outline of what I want to write, but sometimes I realize it would fit better a different way. So sorry in advance for any confusion. :/

Jim had forgotten about that day with the rush of the subsequent weeks that followed. His life had recently been turned upside down and between his two jobs and his new responsibilities, it wasn’t strange enough to stay on his mind. However, when the Vulcan dress in a gray dress uniform walked into the coffee house for the first time since he started working three years ago, it immediately leapt to the forefront of his mind in sudden clarity and he realized he maybe should have given it more thought.

Before he had even reached the counter, Jim turned to grab the only Vulcan tea they had and began steeping it in hot water. He carried it to the register where the dark eyed strange was waiting and set it down instead of reaching out to hand it to him. Jim knew Vulcans preferred to avoid accidental hand brushings when it came to things like that. Then to his utter delight, Jim offered the Vulcan salute and watched as the shock appeared on the Vulcan’s face - one raised eyebrow was classic Vulcan expressionism. Jim was hard pressed to keep his sly smirk off his face when it took a moment for him to return the greeting.

“I did not order this beverage.” The man said. Jim could almost feel his voice scrape across his bones in a delicious shiver - had he not been James T. Kirk, the smirk might have fallen off his face at the warmth it stirred.

“Yea, well, very few people come in here and not order something, and I know most Vulcan’s don’t care for coffee so I thought I'd take a shot and make you a cup of Vulcan tea instead. If you don’t want it that’s cool. I can drink it on my break.” It actually wasn’t to bad of a drink, a bit bland, but Jim still found it more relaxing than chamomile.

“I see. Well, then I thank you for your consideration. While I did not come for a beverage, I will accept.” He slid the cup closer to his person before moving to sit on a bar stool, though his eyes never left Jim’s face.

“Oh, what brings you to this fine establishment then?” Jim asked.

“I’m look for a Dr. Trentworth. Do you know him?” It was only years of masks and false personalities that stopped Jim from swearing.

“He's never called himself a doctor, but I’ve seen him in here quite a bit. Can I ask why?”

“He has several Ph.Ds in specialized fields. A cadet for a final term paper in class, of which I am the department head, credited him for the math she used to base her thesis on. Though she only listed him as Mr. J. Trentworth, she presented all material used for the calculations. I was intrigued with the way he went about solving the problems and, of course, found information stating his many degrees from several prestigious universities. When I asked the cadet she said he could be found here most Tuesday, if not other days as well.” The information was delivered in a very clinical fashion with no emotion and yet, Jim felt a swell of unnamed emotions rising up in himself. He suppressed each one behind a polite smile.

Every degree Jim had earned, all nine of them, were accredited to Jim Trentworth because his Aunt was the one who had gave him everything. However, last year things had changed. He’d gotten a phone call in the middle of the night and nine hours later he was Jim Kirk again. It killed him to lose her name - the diplomas in his dresser drawer still called him a Trentworth with their permanent ink, but it still felt like he was letting go of the only thing he had left of her.

Jim didn’t have any employee application on file because he was always referred to by word of mouth, but he hacked any database that could track him back to Jim Trentworth. A year ago things changed and for that to happen he couldn’t be a Trentworth anymore. There was nothing this man, this Vulcan, would be able to find to label him as who he was looking for. He just needed to make sure Gaila shut her mouth and didn’t point any fingers his direction.

That didn’t mean that he wasn’t still paranoid. He couldn’t risk people looking into his life right now.

“What do you want him for? Is he in trouble for helping out a cadet?”

“Not at all. However, his work resembled that of several articles published by Dr. Ben Joseph. I was intrigued by the similarities and wanted to know if they were colleagues. I also wished to ask his opinion on a test for computer programing that I plan to implement as a mandatory exam for those who wish to graduate from the program. Gaila and I both saw some abstract concepts that were used to solve the equations and I believe his input will greatly help in shaping future Starfleet cadets.”

“Well I can’t guarantee he’ll be in today, but if you’d like to leave it with me I can get it to him if he comes in? You can come in next Tuesday to check in?” Jim doubted it would take him a week, but even more than that he doubted the still unnamed Vulcan would leave something like that in his possession. He didn’t seem like the type to trust Jim - most people weren’t on first contact. (Bones said he was like cheese, then again metaphors were never really his thing.)

“I believe that would be a satisfactory arrangement. I am Commander S'chn T'gai Spock, though you may simply refer to me as Commander Spock when you deliver this to him.” Spock said as he removed a PADD from a satchel Jim hadn’t noticed him carrying when he first arrived. He didn’t, however, fail to pick up on the lack of social cues about Spock wanting his own name. Which was all the better for him; though something about his name niggled in the back of his mind.

“Sure, no problem. I’ll just leave it here behind the counter.” Jim replied.

“Thank you.” Spock inclined his head. “How much do I owe you for the cup of tea?” He reached for credits from the same bag, but Jim waved him off. That seemed to greatly confuse Spock if the inquisitive head tilt meant anything. Spock was by far the most emotive adult Vulcan Jim had ever encountered and he found it oddly satisfying to be able to read him so well because of it.

“I told you earlier, I would have drank it if you didn’t want it, and beside I can’t guarantee Trentworth will even agree to help out with the exam. I’d hate to take advantage if the only reason you came here ended up falling through.” Jim smiled when he saw Spock didn’t really understand his logic, but the Vulcan simply said thank you again before departing.

Jim lasted an hour before looking at the PADD.

In his defense, though, spring semester had just ended which meant not only were their fewer students on campus taking summer courses, but it was also a bit too hot and muggy for coffee for anyone that wasn't an extreme addict and a partial masochist - Bones came in almost every morning and it always made Jim cackle. Before he could even see what the exam Spock had mentioned was about he had to crack an encryption to unlock the PADD. He assumed it was the professor in Spock trying to keep out nosy people. Lucky for Jim, it didn't even take two minutes to crack.

The exam was exactly what Spock said it was and very straightforward - which was kind of a problem in itself. While Jim wasn't willing to share all his secrets he did want to help ensure that future Starfleet personnel were able to send encrypted information that could withstand any hacking he was able to do at sixteen. Any information he had come by past then he would keep close to his chest. And so his corrections began.

Spock mentioned that both he and Gaila had come across interesting concepts, but he didn't mention if they were the same ones. He had used Orion and Vulcan programing and encryption codes in his calculations. Sometimes programming from different origins could get you closer to the desired outcome, and while math was math - an unchanging variable essentially, the input of different codes could alter the outcome of the calculation in any given program, like navigations. Jim went through the exam with how he assumed Spock expected the questions to be answered. Then he added other ways to solve the problems if it had been asked a different way so that the answer would have to include more complex codes - i.e. Vulcan, Orion, Andorian, and even Klingon. Mixing the different codes would not only make it harder to hack, but would teach the cadets how to hack other intercepted communications.

After an hour, Jim thought he had given enough for Spock to think on. It was possible he wouldn't accept all the changes Jim had made; while it wasn't necessary to be fluent in the languages to understand, create, and break the different codes, it was important to at least be familiar with them. Most engineers and programmers Jim had met from Starfleet were more likely to be taking something apart in their spare time then throwing themselves into learning new languages. That was part of the reason Jim was so good at it. He'd become multilingual by the time he was twelve - most people didn't have that advantage.

Jim set the lock encryption to something harder and left it at that.


	4. Promises & Panic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the wonderful feedback! I can't tell you how much its helped. I've been really anxious about this whole thing.

Two weeks before he left San Francisco last year, was the first time he told anyone beside Bones that he was a Trentworth. Prior to that it had been hacking and implication and never really a fact stated for any one person to know, to connect the dots between the name and him. Gaila, a first year cadet, was the first person he told and he only had himself to blame.

They’d just finished their third round of sex, giving a new meaning to the title Dungeons and Dragons and they was enjoying the feeling of getting air back in their lungs. Of the three or four friends with benefits he had in his lifetime, despite what nosy Starfleet cadets liked to gossip about, Gaila was his favorite. However, it was a seriously blow to his ego when he realized she wasn’t panting, but giggling rather hysterically into his chest.

“What?” He asked, voice still hoarse despite the drink of water he’d had.

“I just realized, we did all that and I don’t even know your last name.” She rolled over onto her back, taking all of the sheet with her, and began to laugh loudly in the small dorm room.

Two thoughts went quickly through his head at that moment: first - God she was beautiful. With her head thrown back in a full body laugh. Sheet pulled tight around her sweat slick skin, and her red curls spread out around her. The second was he needed to end things before he allowed himself to feel anything other than friendship for her. Yet the second thought wasn’t strong enough to stop him from pulling the comforter over both of them, before rolling onto his side and pulling her into his chest. This was why she was his favorite, she didn’t mind cuddling with him afterward. The thought wasn’t loud enough to stop him from leaning close and whispering into her ear, “Trentworth. Jim Trentworth.” She simply hummed appreciatively and then right on that edge of sleep she whispered one word - “James.” The full body flinch the name brought was enough to shock him from his haze; he slipped out warm bed and dressed quickly all with Gaila sound asleep.

He didn’t see her again until close to midnight the night he left town. Uhura refuses to let him in, but Gaila came out into the hall anyways. She must have seen the utter desperation in his eyes because she immediately straightened her posture and started paying him attention. Gone was the uptight aloof girl who had stepped outside to give him a piece of her mind for ignoring her for so long, and in her place stood a friend he desperately needed her to be.

“I know I’ve been a bastard to you, but I need you swear to never tell another soul about me being Jim Trentworth.” He begged her, the first he’d ever begged anyone in his life. “Things are really complicated and I don’t want to get into it, but I have to leave for a while and I can’t have anyone know what I told you.”

“Are you in trouble Jimmy?”

“No, not me. But some people who depend on me are and I can’t help them if people know who I am.”

“What does that mean?” The panic crawling inside him was pouring out into anger before he could pull it back.

“It means Starfleet has files on me. It means they're trying to solve a puzzle but they don't have all the pieces. They flagged my files, they'll know if I make a move, and I wouldn’t unless it was really important. And don’t you see, Gaila, don’t you see that this is the most important thing and I have to give up being a Trentworth for it to work. It's the only way to beat the system, and to get away with it no one can know the truth. Please Gaila, please swear you won’t tell a soul.” The mangled words tore from his mouth, only the context kept him from truly raising his voice.

“I swear, Jimmy. But if you aren’t going to be a Trentworth, who will you become?”

“Someone I haven’t been in a long time.” His voice catching on the words. Gaila pulled him into a hug and held him for a long moment, before stepping back. She murmured a quiet good luck before heading back into her room.

He took a minute to gather himself back together and then headed to the shuttle dock.

 

\\\//\\\//\\\//\\\//\\\//

 

It was while he was sitting stuck in school traffic later in the afternoon, starring down at the PADD Spock had given him, that the anger he had suppressed earlier came screaming back to him. He was barely reigning it in when she walked into the bar that evening. He didn’t say anything as he yanked her away from her group, taking her to the office.

“You swore to me!” He didn’t yell. It was a silent rage, like ice in his veins, and he knew his stare was as hard as his grip on her arm. “You swore you wouldn’t tell a soul.”

“What did you expect me to do, Jimmy?” Gaila acted irritated in the face of his wrath. “I couldn’t take credit for the work, any professor in the department would know I didn’t do those calculations. It’s not like I knew you had a damned Ph.D!”

“You have started a very dangerous game. And I want you to know if Spock, or anyone else for that matter, finds out that I’m Jim Trentworth, then the fall out will be on your head. I will not be accountable for my action, so help me God, if this ends in a tragedy because you couldn’t keep your fucking mouth shut.” Jim stalked out of the room, without even a glance back, not caring in the least at  how shaken she might have looked.

He tried to lose himself in his work, but thirty minutes later he’d already messed up four drinks and cracked a shot glass because he’d slammed it down on the counter to hard. He begged off for the rest of the night, which the owner, Harvelle, allowed because he rarely called in sick.

The truth was he didn’t need the job, either of them really. He had plenty of income coming in from other projects he worked on during his down time - mostly academic papers and research projects. He could be outrageously productive during his spells of insomnia. But sometimes he needed to escape his head for a little while, become someone else again - a flirty, cocky, asshole without a care in the world, just simply taking the piss out of life. It only ever worked for a little while though.

Bones was suppose to be coming in later after his shift, so Jim texted him to let him know he wouldn’t be there. Unfortunately, that was pretty much a red flag for his best friend and he knew he’d have to talk about what was bothering him sooner or later. Luckily he knew a few ways to derail those kinds of conversations.

The house was a mess when he got back, clothes and textbooks thrown about. He tidy up a bit as he made it through the house before stopping in front of the recently converted guest room. He sighed and slumped with his forehead against the door, the wood cold against his skin. He tried to swallow down the rising panic, trying to constrict his throat and lungs, to hide it all behind a careful façade, before allowing himself to go in.


	5. Firsts & Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a minor tweak to the dialogue in the last chapter. It doesn't really apply to this chapter, but hopefully it'll make things smoother later on!! <3

Before he boarded the shuttle for Tarsus, Ms. Carter gave him a duffle bag he’d never seen before. She hugged him goodbye, too, and James didn’t know if it was more odd that a near perfect stranger was dropping him off and hugging him goodbye instead of his so called family, or the fact that he couldn’t actually remember the last time someone had hugged him - if anyone ever had.

With little less to do on the shuttle ride, James looked through the contents of his bag and discovered clothes he’d never seen before. He’d never had clothes that hadn’t been Sam's first. Tucked inside a denim jacket, to keep it safe on the journey, was a refurbished PADD, a newer version then his old one he’d fixed up from the junkyard, and a copy of _The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ by Mark Twain. Suddenly, the calm that he’d known all his life, the numbness that had kept him from feeling, seemed to vanish and in its wake was a endless pit of despair - all from the simple realization that all his dad’s books had been left behind, his only comfort for his entire life was gone. For the first time in his life, James broke down and sobbed; nobody tried to comfort him.

 

\\\//\\\//\\\//\\\//\\\//

 

He didn’t have any clue who he was suppose to be looking for when he unloaded from the shuttle.  He stood awkwardly on the platform, waiting for the unknown.

“Damn, you look just like George.” The words had been slurred at him enough when Winona was still around and had to much to drink. He didn’t even have time to flinch at the comment before the woman’s entire face lit up into a giant grin. He’d never gotten that reaction from those words; he didn’t know how to respond. Thankfully she seemed to realize this, “I’m Josephine, your dad’s younger sister. You can call me Aunt Josie.” Her smile became small, but no less kind. He nodded at her.

“I’m.. most people call me James, but I don’t really like that name.” His break down on the shuttle had left him feeling timid and vulnerable. He knew that if she moved too quickly his direction, he wouldn’t be able to hold back his flinch, not like he had with Frank.

“Okay, well. What about JIm? That’s what George wanted to call you. Maybe that’d work for you?” She asked without a hint of anger or annoyance. He let slip a small smile of his own as he nodded in agreement.

Aunt Josie preferred to walk most places on the Tarsus colony, so they talked on the trek toward her home. She had lost touch with George when he joined Starfleet. She’d married Ben Trentworth, her high school sweetheart like George, and they’d moved to a farm in Idaho for sixteen years before she’d gotten a consultation job with an agricultural company. It was opening a new branch on the new Tarsus IV colony and wanted her to be there for breaking ground. That had been seven years ago, she’d spent several years trying to get into contact with Winona to offer support, but finally she decided she had to get creative.

She told him about contacting Polly Carter, her best friend from high school, to find information about her only remaining family. Polly had told her about how smart Jim was but how isolated he seemed. They tried tirelessly to reach Winona and Frank in an effort to grant her custody of both boys but they were denied every time. It wasn’t until Frank pressed charges that they were able to gain an advantage, even if Sam was long gone by then. Polly’s grandmother was the only juvenile criminal court judge in the county and was more then willing to use her sway to save a child - especially a Kirk. Jim was in awe at the lengths she’d gone to help him, even when she didn’t know anything about him. He silently promised never to give her reason to be disappointed in him.

She stopped at the end of the driveway, he could see a man working in the tall corn field beside the house. His attention switched immediately when he caught the sudden look on Aunt Josie’s face - he didn’t think she looked afraid, but her demeanor had definitely became more hesitant. Suddenly, he was scared he traded one Frank for another. He turned back to search for where the man had disappeared in the crop while trying to pull Aunt Jose back towards town.

“Jim, no wait. It’s fine, everything’s fine. I just need to tell you something and I’m a bit nervous about how you’ll take it. See even though the court granted me temporary custody, I was afraid what Winona would do if she found out you were here instead of home with Frank. I didn’t want you to be happy here, and then her show up and take you back to Earth. Do you understand?” He nodded slowly. “So, well, I had Polly list you as James Trentworth when she bought your ticket for the shuttle. Nobody here knows you’re a Kirk, they all think you’re Ben’s nephew.” She took a steadying breath, “Are you okay with that?”

“Uh, sure?” Jim didn’t really get what the big deal was. Nobody would care where he was or wasn’t. If Aunt Josie rather he be a Trentworth then a Kirk he was okay with that. He could tell she just wanted him to be safe - it was just a name though, not like it really mattered either way.

“Okay.” Her smile grew once again, “okay, good! And hey, after lunch, I have a friend I want you to meet. I think you’re really going to like her.” She led him toward Ben, who was now waiting on the steps to the front door.

The thought of having his first sit down family meal together seemed way more life changing than his name.


	6. Tests & Teachers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to make this chapter a bit longer than the last one. Let me know what you think!! 
> 
> Probably going to be spacing out posting the chapters more. I have finals and end of semester projects all due in the next two weeks. I'll def. post one sometime this week just not sure when!

After the quick lunch, with the honest to God best mash potatoes Jim had ever had - seriously, he’d never eat replicated potatoes again, Aunt Josie took Jim to the only high school in the colony for him to meet her friend.

The walk there took them through more of the colony then he’d previously seen. It reminded him of the mining towns that’d pop up during the old west like he’d read about in some of his dad’s old western books. There was a general store on the corner of the main road across from the barbershop and a diner. There were a lot of boutique stores and specialty stores setup around the town square as well. They passed a florist, who had red chrysanthemums on display in front of its windows, Jim steered clear of them, already feeling the itchy sensation of hives trying to crawl out of his skin.

There was a courthouse setup in the middle of the square, like a castle set upon a grassy knoll. Aunt Josie told him that was were Governor Kodos lived - the top floor sectioned off specifically for his living quarters. She’d only recently met him when he came to talk with her about an agriculture anomaly he’d gotten a report about. She didn’t go into more detail, trying to distract him with the offer of ice cream from the best place on the planet. Jim made sure to avoid the strawberry, rocky road fudge, and the pistachio flavors.

There were two high schools on Tarsus, with 8,000 citizens, some of which were leaders in their chosen fields, a private school had been built to cater to those with the brains and the willpower to become leaders themselves. The school gained its own recognition with the one of the first curriculums designed to guarantee entrance to Starfleet upon graduation. It was all cultivated and managed by one woman - Hoshi Sato.

Principal Sato was a retired Starfleet Communications officer and in her old age, her joy was teaching children. Aunt Josie had approached her before Jim’s arrival to find out if he could start school at the high school. She’d provided Sato with a letter from Ms. Carter going into great detail how smart and how far ahead of his peers Jim was, how hard he worked at gaining more knowledge, about his passion for learning more.

Apparently, Sato had taken this as almost a challenge - it was her duty to find out just how smart Jim really was. To her it was one thing to be a head of his peers in a small rural school and an absolute other thing to advance in a school dedicated to providing the best education possible for its students.  

So, she compiled a giant test of all the things her students learned from required materials to advanced placement electives the school offered in a bid to find out where he’d fit best, or if he fit there at all. Because of Sato background in communications, the school boasted a large number of language courses offered; she included basic to advanced knowledge on all ten languages on the test. Four years worth of education was presented in short answer, essay, multiple choice, true and false and fill in the blank, and he was only given six hours, a calculator and a spare sheet of paper to complete it.

Jim finished it in two and a half hours without touching the calculator; he filled both sides of the paper with corrections and expounding on ideas that he came across. He didn’t skip one question, he didn’t get one wrong. While some of the ways he worked a problem or instinctively arrived at an answer was considered unorthodox, he couldn’t be penalized for it. And for every question he listed the correct answer before inputting a note to check his paper, stating how actually that it could be argued that this is the correct answer but given that it wasn’t an option he went with the most right one, he was given an extra point. Two hundred questions per subject worth half a point each, four core classes and ten language classes, plus computer coding and engineering and four other electives equaled a test with a possible 2000 points - Jim Trentworth earned 2400 and a high school diploma with honors at the age of eleven.

Both, “Call me Hoshi, Jim” and Aunt Josie were surprised and hesitant to make the diploma out to Jim Trentworth when technically he didn’t exist. On all public records Jim was still a Kirk, but Jim wouldn’t budge on the issue. If he was really still a Kirk, he’d still be on Earth, still be stuck at the back of his sixth grade classroom; no, he was a Trentworth now. They reluctantly agreed, but only after a few days of a buzz going around the colony about a child prodigy they realized it was to much.

The craziness of the situation left Jim in awe.  He never told Aunt Josie, but he had heard the transmission from the Kelvin, he knew his dad had wanted to call him Jim, and he became a Trentworth for his aunt: the only two people in all the universe who cared and wanted nothing more than for him to thrive and be loved. Except now, it seemed like everyone, including Starfleet Admirals, wanted to know who Jim Trentworth was. The news of the complexity and outcome of Hoshi’s test had reached many in the academia world, and suddenly Jim Trentworth was being offered enrollment in Universities across the Federation.

In an effort to stop rumors, Hoshi finally allowed the student paper to interview her. She stated that the stories were false, that Josephine Trentworth's eighteen year old nephew, who had been homeschooled, had come to take the exam to test his schooling against her curriculum. She told the paper, (after having hacked shuttle records), that he had already left the planet to return home. To protect Jim, to allow him a childhood he never had, his Aunt and Uncle told everyone that he was simply a foster child they took in. He was introduced to everyone on Tarsus as JT.

There wasn’t a college that he could enroll in on Tarsus IV, but Hoshi helped him pick through the universities that had contacted her about his enrolment. He picked two school that had the best programs for Engineering (with a minor in English) and History (with a minor in Philosophy) and allowed him to take classes online. He managed to CLEP out of all of his core required classes as well as some of the upper ones in both programs.   

His life fell into a pattern better than he could ever imagine. Instead of getting up and going to school, before coming back and trying to escape into the attic before Frank could get to him, instead of only eating one meal a day, instead of having no friends, JT felt like he was living for the first time. He worked in the fields with Ben on odds days and on even days, he’d go with Aunt Josie to work. In the evenings he’d work on his classes either on his own or while babysitting some of the neighbor's kids. On Sundays he’d spend the day with Hoshi talking in languages that only they knew. He’d known grammar and syntax of many different languages, but he’d never gotten the opportunity to practice actually speaking them until he’d met her.

He realized Ms. Carter had been right - he constantly craved to learn more, but JT always tried to downplay how smart he was when he was around other kids his age. He found it was harder to connect with them if he tried to be himself. He’d rather play chess or read books if he wasn’t helping out around the colony: farming, babysitting, fixing things, but that wasn’t good enough for them. The boys from Hoshi’s school turned their noses up at him because they thought he wasn’t as good as them, and the kids from the other school hated him because they thought he was a pretentious snob. Neither group realized he wasn’t even in school at all.

There was a group of kids that he hung around with, though they were all younger than him. That didn’t stop them from quickly trying to defend him whenever he started to be targeted by bullies. Despite their best efforts they’d quickly be shoved aside, and though JT would never come to his own defense, he couldn’t stand by while his friend were being hurt; he was constantly getting into fist fights. Sometimes, they’d purposely set off one of his many allergies if he drew to much attention to himself. If too many people were saying nice things about him then they thought he needed to brought down a peg. It never would have bothered him if it didn’t upset Aunt Josie so much.

After a particularly bad fight that had in no way ended in their favor, Uncle Ben pulled him and a few of the others aside and plainly told them if they were going to defend themselves then they needed to get better at it. He began teaching them boxing techniques in the barn twice a week after dinner: JT, Geoffrey, who was eleven like JT, Abe, an Ocampa, and Tom, who were both nine, Tabitha, an eight year old Orion, and more often than not three year old Kevin Reilly would find his way over to watch from next door.

Uncle Ben had gone to college on a full ride boxing scholarship while earning a double degree in botany and agriculture. He had an old pair of boxing gloves that he’d given to Jim to use, but he’d had an allergic reaction to the leather cleaner that’d been used on them and had to visit the clinic again. It had become sort of a running gag to everyone though - if you couldn’t find JT, that usually meant he was at the clinic. Nurse Cameron had a bigger file for JT than anyone else on the colony and he’d only been living there three months. It wasn’t something he was necessarily proud of.  

At the end of the year, he might have become proficient in boxing, earned two degrees and learned two new languages, but his most important memory would be celebrating his first real Christmas that was just like all the movies he watched in school back in Riverside. All that was missing was snow, though he did joke with Tom and Abe that the stuff growing on the crops kinda looked like it.


	7. Fights & Fate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know I said I'd try to post a chapter sooner then now - Sorry! This chapter is longer tho (: I think I'm going to try and implement posting a chapter every Sunday and then if an extra pops up sometime during the week that'll be a bonus. 
> 
> Also I'd just like to remind everyone that I did label this fic as slow build so, you know, stay with me. Spock's coming back next chapter. 
> 
> PS I know my tenses are shit. Its a problem. if someone wants to volunteer to beta if it just really bothers you let me know.

Jim woke up unexpectedly to the sound of the alarm clock instead of the usual nudge and a glass of scotch from Bones when he gets home and find Jim asleep somewhere other than his bed. The alarm was set to go off an hour and a half before the first Starfleet class which started at 0700 sharp. He was living with a moron; nobody should willingly sign up for first classes. He forced himself out of the bed, knowing that between the dreams of the past and the shrill alarm he wasn’t likely to fall back asleep. Instead, he decided to go to the gym.

Typically, he only went to the gyms on Monday and Friday mornings, because the months following moving back, had been extremely hectic, and the old schedule he and Bones had been operating on had to be modified. Before, Jim work the evenings on the days Bones had classes and days when Bones had shifts at night. Now, Jim requested even fewer shifts at the bar in the evenings, so that Bones was able to take on more shifts so he could graduate quicker.

While it was true that he technically didn’t need to work because he had a steady income, other people didn’t know about his academic persona. Which meant it’d be more suspect if he didn’t work two jobs. Overall though, the lifestyle they had set up wasn’t to bad. With all but two of his evenings cleared of work, Jim could work more on his writings. They both had one morning a week were they could sleep in - other than the weekends, and they had two nights a week were they were both off so they could sit down and catch up on epic ER stories or bar shenanigans or just go over bills. They shared all the bills 50/50. It was all very domestic.

Prior to meeting his best friend, Jim hadn’t had a primary physician, mainly because he was focused on staying under the radar, but also because with any of his health issues would come confidential information - like who his parents were or living on Tarsus. Bones had started out paying rent, but even then it’d been ridiculously cheap - Jim never knew what to charge. He really hadn’t even been looking for a roommate when they’d met when Jim was nineteen.

Bones and Jim met in a bar fight. When most people hear that sentence, they just assume that it’d been Jim’s fault, but that’d actually not been the case. He’d been minding his own business, window shopping with Nikki, when they’d both heard a commotion from a bar across the street. A tall brunette with a red face that seemed to be verging on purple from a mix of anger and alcohol was giving a dressing down to a younger burly man that Jim would easily liken to a bull. Both were dressed in red cadet uniforms. Jim could immediately tell that if it came down to a fight, the angry one didn’t stand a chance, which made him still on the sidewalk to listen. Nikki was radiating disappointment in his lack of impulse control but didn’t correct him on his bad manners.

“Dammit man, I’m a Doctor, but Hippocratic oath or not I will inject you with Gorgon herpes if I catch you sexually harassing one more person.” Purple screamed, and Jim knew right then he’d step in and fight for him if things escalated. Which of course they did.

After the fight, Doctor Leonard McCoy introduced himself while checking over Jim’s busted nose from Cupcake the bull’s lucky shot when Jim caught sight of a face from his past watching the fight from where he and Nikki had stood not five minutes early. Captain Pike had just shook his head and kept on walking, but that moment of blind panic had been enough of a slip in his concentration that Cupcake had knocked him clean over.

Bones was looking for a place to stay, because there wasn’t anyway he was staying in a dorm. Just full stop. It wasn’t going to happen. Jim was never one to deny his instinct, so without hesitating he mentioned needing a roommate to help with the rent, even though the hose was actually paid for, and told him to stop by the next day to check it out. After that things kind of fell into place.

It wasn’t even a year after meeting Bones, that he realized Jim never went to the doctor for anything, choosing instead to self medicate his allergies - he’d become a pro by that time. However, Bones quickly took it upon himself to remedy that as well. Jim figured if it helped keep Bones’ blood pressure down then it wasn’t any trouble for him. Mainly because Jim was extremely fit, a therapist might even say it was an unhealthy compulsion to constantly be prepared to go on the defensive. If it wasn’t for his three page, and still growing, list of allergies, and he knows because Bones makes him keep the file stored on a pendant necklace, he’d be perfectly healthy - physically at least.

 

\\\//\\\//\\\//\\\//\\\//

 

Jim stopped watching the two fighting on the mat to survey his surroundings instead. While the gym he used was near the house, it was technically only for Starfleet personnel. Luckily, Jim had a family pass that he used. The reason Starfleet gyms were superior to regular gyms was because they offered more variety that was more inclusive for other species.

However, he wasn’t interested in any of that right now, instead he was watching two cadets he’d clocked when he’d first entered the building. One, an Asian man, possibly older than Jim, was punching aggressively at a hanging bag that was being held by a teenager with bronze curls. If Jim was a betting man, which he usually was, he’d guess the kid was Russian simply by the mix of words rapidly flowing from his mouth. He’d been impressed by the man’s form when he’d made a passing glance to see what equipment was open, but it was the name Dr. Ben Joseph that’d caught his attention. Apparently, Dr. Joseph had a new theory that’d been published yesterday in an academic journal for advanced mathematics that had all of Starfleet in a tizzy judging from what the kid was saying. Of course, most of his commentary was in Russian and it didn’t look like his friend was able to follow along, but he nodded and smiled nonetheless.

“It’s your turn Pav.” The man said before chugging his water.

“Nyet.” The kid, Pav, grabbed his right shoulder with a wince. “Perhaps one more day vill be best.” A dark look passed over the man’s face and Jim had a sinking feeling Pav hadn’t been hurt while trying to exercise.

“We can ice it again when we get back to the room.” The duo began heading towards the locker room, which meant they were heading toward Jim. He turned back to the fight on the mat. The two fighters were supposed to be fighting clean, but their forms had slowly been slipping and they were starting to look more like a backyard brawl than anything else. At least, that’s what they wanted it to look like.

“Woah. Woah.” The same man came to stand next to Jim. “Shouldn’t someone stop them, they could cause some serious damage to each other.” His voice held nothing but utmost concern.

“It’s a ploy.” Jim responded. The man looked at him like he was crazy.

“Sulu,” he said sticking out his hand. With his other he gestured to the kid, “and that’s Chekov.”

“Kirk.” Jim shook both their hands. Sulu raised his eyebrows at the name, but thankfully didn’t say anything. “You training to get you security certification?” Sulu seemed surprised Jim could’ve guessed that, but really while the man had skills he didn’t scream red shirt material. “You should learn to watch people’s movements when they fight. Learn the difference between a serious fight and a distraction. Like them.” Jim turned back to the fighters. “You can tell they’re not lost to the fight because they are too aware of each other’s movements. They’re just trying to mimic fighting, trying to draw the real target closer.” Jim pointed toward the two boys. “See, Kev, the younger one, is keeping his left arm close to his chest, using it to block. That would indicate he’s probably right handed, but he’s kicking with his left. So, either he’s hurt and he’s favoring either his left arm or even right leg, or it’s a ploy to make you think that. Now, Tom, or uh, Cadet Leighton, he knows that Kev is left handed, but he’s not using that Kev’s hurt against him. Just like Kev knows that Tom has almost no peripheral vision in his left eye, but he’s not exploiting that to win either. They both want me to think they’re trying to kill one another so I’ll weigh in to break it up and they can turn it into two against one.” Jim explained. He wasn’t able to mask his smirk, because he knew, just like the boys did, that real fight or not, if Jim weighed in at all he’d come out on top.

“Well,” the man grinned, “what if we both went and tried to break them up.” Jim’s heart stopped for a beat before he felt his smile slip off his face and his spine turn to steel.

“You misunderstand. Just because I pointed out their weaknesses doesn’t mean that they aren’t deadly fighters. The only person who would stand up against them, even just one on one, would be me.” Sulu surveyed him calmly, seeming to understand that Jim wasn’t being cocky about this.

“You trained them” He stated.

“I did for a year.” This past year, when he’d found out both had dreams of joining Starfleet, Tom, at 18, planned to enroll as soon as they got back to San Francisco, and Kev, at 13, was prepared to follow in his footsteps.

“Would you train me? My test is at the end of the fall term. I want to be as well rounded as possible to get on a good ship, and -” he paused to side eye Chekov who was watching Kev and Tom fight with a fascinated look. “And I’d like to know some good moves so I can protect people.” Those were the words that determined the decision in Jim’s mind. His uncle always told him - ‘you learn to fight to protect others, not to put yourself above others’.

“One condition.” Jim liked Sulu. Like Bones, he could tell that Sulu was someone he could trust. Maybe not as unconditionally like Bones, but trust him with something important nonetheless.

“Name it.”

“Kev and Tom come almost everyday to workout here. Kev’s a minor; it’d give me peace of mind to know someone else was watching his back when I’m not here. He can hold his own in a fight, but that could be a problem on its own if he gets into it with the wrong cadet.” Jim distinctly remembered the cops showing up at his work place after his fight with Cupcake. If it hadn’t been for Bones’ witness statements he could’ve been in serious trouble. He didn’t need something like that happening with Kev - especially since he was now his guardian.

Sulu agreed easily. Jim told Chekov that if he wanted to tag along to Sulu’s training too, he’d show him some easy defensive moves if he was interested. Despite the scarlet blush that flooded his face, Chekov nodded quickly. He waved them off to the locker room after exchanging numbers, and Jim stepped onto the mat. He'd make this quick - Cadet Leighton had a 0700 class after all.  


	8. Intrigue & Insecurity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay.  
> 1) I know I'm a day late- super sorry.
> 
> 2) I've been through a super exhausting week because of finals and found it hard to get back into the mind set to write Kirk so I know this chapter might not be as consistent as the others. I just didn't want to leave you all hanging. Kinda really hate this chapter and will probably come back and rework it -again sorry.
> 
> 3) made an edit to chapter six regarding Jim Trentworth and JT so might check that out. 
> 
> 4) feedback is always appreciated!!

Jim was having a good day. Something that wasn’t necessarily rare in recent times, but an important distinction nonetheless. On bad days he could hardly stand being in the coffee shop. The black and white café with stainless steel accents came off cold, and the cherry red uniforms of the cadet that swarmed the place looked like pools of blood. It made the distinction between those who could blend in with the Terrans and those who could not stronger. Even as they gathered and mingled in booths and tables, the obviousness of their differences - ones they could neither hide or deny, made Jim’s stomach ache and food tastes like ash for the whole day. The idea of people being picked out of a group, chosen for their uniqueness, turning it into a curse instead of an opportunity, always haunted Jim on his bad days. Jim always worked tirelessly to keep those days from touching others; he forced smiles and flirted, always keeping people an arms length away while still thinking they knew him. Thankfully, he hadn’t had a bad day in a while.

However, that didn’t mean that everything was going his way. Despite the slight change in his schedule with the addition of Sulu, and often times Chekov, things kept on like normal for the rest of the week. He just didn’t managed to succeed in escaping Bones.

The next Tuesday quickly arrived and with it brought Bones in looking for his morning pick me up at 0600 in the morning. The first class at the Academy started at 0700 making the crowd always crazy. That didn’t stop Bones from crowding behind the counter by the coffee machine so he could chew Jim out while he worked. Bones liked to be efficient like that. So Jim multitasked between filling orders and trying to block out the lecture from his best friend about complicating matters and causing shitstorms, all of which Jim was already aware was all a possibility. He didn’t miss the irony about it though, because Bones didn’t actually know any of what was going on. It was just his standard rant for whenever Jim became shifty.

At some point, in the middle of Bones’ multitude of Georgian metaphors, a certain Vulcan walked through the door exactly thirty minutes after opening. If Jim didn’t know that the entire Vulcan race had perfect enteral clocks, he could almost picture Spock staring at the clock waiting for the appropriate time to show up. He was in his grey command uniform again.

Unsurprisingly, Spock didn’t get in the long line of cadets waiting for their morning pick-me-up. Instead he occupied the same barstool from last time. Jim was to busy with the morning rush to give him more than a head nod; he didn’t expect Spock to nod at him in return, but he did so anyway. There was no way Jim could stop the smile the sight brought to his face; it was something that Bones immediately noticed. Thankfully, being a doctor meant that Bones knew that anything he might say about Jim’s pearly whites being on display would likely be overheard by the Vulcan, but his narrowed eye look told Jim that they would be discussing this and more when they got home that night. After that, Bones left for his shift at the hospital.  

Jim quickly lost himself in the repetitive motion of filling drink orders and chatting with the regulars. His eyes caught when Uhura and Gaila walked in, but he didn’t pay them any mind even as the line was winding down as it got closer to 0700. A part of him assumed Gaila would approach Spock to keep up a polite relationship as Professor and Cadet, but he was surprised when he heard Uhura speaking in Vulcan.

 _“Goodmorning, Professor.”_ Uhura greeted.

“Cadet.”

“ _I’ve been reading ahead in our textbook, and had some questions about the pronunciation about some of the words in High Vulcan.”_

 _“Currently, I am unable to offer help, but if you come by during my office hours, I would be willing to answer any of your questions.”_ Spock calmly offered.

 _“Actually, I was wondering if you’d like too meet at the tea shop on the corner of Destin after your last class this evening?”_ Uhura practically purred.

Jim tried to suppress a snort into his shoulder, but didn’t quite succeed. Uhura had once told him she could hear individual snowflakes landing, and could definitely her him breathing through his mouth while he hid under Gaila’s bed. It wasn’t a surprise when her head snapped towards him with a cocked eyebrow full of attitude.

 _“Did you just figure out why the chicken crossed the road?”_ Uhura snarked still speaking in Vulcan. She always thought him a simple minded individual. However, she underestimated how much Jim enjoyed being a little shit.

 _“I think it was to get to the other side - I’m guessing either because of sex or booze.”_ He responded with an innocent head tilt, like he wasn’t sure. Both she and Spock were shocked at the ease of which the Vulcan language left his tongue.

“You speak Vulcan?” Spock asked slowly like he was observing a surprising science experiment.  

“On occasion.” Jim shrugged. He reached below the register to grab the PADD Spock had left with him the week prior, and handed it over. “Trentworth worked on this, and said if you needed any more input just go through me. He’s offering to pay me as a messenger.” Jim smirked like he’d learned how to play the system, all the while keeping his gaze away from Gaila who was sitting at a two-seater table behind Spock and Uhura. He purposely used the tablet and the mention of Trentworth to push aside the topic of languages. Uhura didn’t look like she was quite willing to let it go, but Spock was already working on trying to unlock the new code Jim had created on the PADD.

“I do not believe I was given your name.” Spock spoke without looking up from the screen.

“Jim. Jim Kirk.” That caused the Vulcan to perk up.

“Any relation -” He began.

“Mom was a drunk who ran off early, and Dad had a big influence on my education.” Jim shrugged again. “Nothing special to note otherwise.” Spock nodded as he accepted this answer, and turned back to review the corrections Trentworth had made to the test.

“Where did you learn Vulcan, Kirk?” Uhura inputted. Jim wasn’t sure if it was because she was honestly perturbed that he knew the language, or if she was trying to regain a little of Spock’s attention again.  

Jim used the excuse of customers to stop him from standing around and ‘chatting’. Despite the pride he felt when he bested Uhura, he realized it was only going to cause more problems for him. She was unlikely to let something like this go, and his connection to Vulcan was even more important to keep hidden then his smarts.

“I had a mentor as a teen, she spoke several languages, and for a few years she kept me interested in learning them too. Vulcan was just one I happened to keep up with.” One he practiced almost daily.

“If you are proficient in other languages in the same way you are in Vulcan, why are you not enrolled in Starfleet?” Spock asked.

“Right, because a Kirk enrolled in Starfleet wouldn’t cause a stir. Besides, I’ve got no high school diploma to the name.” Jim explained. Bending the truth, playing with words, was something Jim immensely enjoyed. He liked leading people away from the truth, without lying. It was a game he often played. It was something he found Vulcan’s especially adept at; he liked the feeling of beating them at their own game.

“I see.” Spock tilted his head like he was trying to solve a puzzle. His dark eyes holding an intense and curious look to them. It made Jim’s heart race and he swallowed hard as he was trapped in his gaze. Jim knew, some part in him: a buzzing in the back of his head, an ache in his chest, something, told him that out of everyone, Spock would find out all of Jim’s carefully hidden secrets; he just didn’t know if Spock was someone he could trust yet.

It took all of Jim’s strength to tear his gaze away from the rich brown eyes. Unfortunately, his eyes fell on Uhura who didn’t look happy at all. He wasn’t afraid of her, but he was smart enough to know he didn’t want to be on her bad side. He moved away from the trio once again.

He focused fully on his work, moving from table to table, giving refills and wiping down tables. In the eyes of those around him, his lifestyle fit that of a high school dropout. They didn’t see the appeal of his job like he did. Being a server, it was the best of both worlds. He was invisible when he wanted to be. Flitting between groups, listening to conversations around the room. And then in the next minute, he was present, social. He was cracking jokes and flirting with customers. He could be the center of attention almost as easily as flipping a switch.

Even Bones didn’t understand why Jim worked at the coffee shop and the bar. He didn’t get that on his bad days, Jim could be apart of society while staying invisible. He could withdraw and simply watch as people passed by without participating in the hectic-ness  around him. And on his good days, he could share laughs and initiate conversations.

However, even as he sunk into his own head, moving through the motions on autopilot, he could still feel eyes on his back. It wasn’t an uncomfortable feeling, but he could still feel a shiver run down his spine. He didn’t look back to confirm who he thought the eyes might belong too. Instead, Jim worked silently for an hour.

“Jim.” Spock spoke up to grab Jim’s attention. As if Jim hadn’t been intensely aware of his presence the entire time.

“Yea?” Jim walked over to him, moving back behind the counter in order to keep space between them. He noticed absently that Uhura and Gaila had left.

“I have a message I would like you to give Dr. Trentworth.”

“Okay, yea. Shoot.”

“I find his work fascinating and while I agree with most of his suggestions, I believe many of them would need to be implemented into an advanced course that currently Starfleet does not offer.” Spock paused to exchange the PADD in his hand for a new one in his bag. “I have another class assignment I would like to have him look over. Any and all notes would be appreciated.”

“Fascinating. New assignment. Got it.” Jim accepted the PADD with a grin.

“Yes.” Jim noticed the corner of the stoic mouth twitch up, making his grin grow broader. “Did he happen to mention about knowing Dr. Joseph?” Spock asked regaining his Vulcan composure.

“Oh, right. I quote, ‘It’s complicated.’ Basically, its like critiquing papers and arguing ideas, I think. He’s kinda tight lipped about it.” Spock pursed his lips at the response, and it was insanely distracting.

“Thank you for the message. I will -” He stared a moment at Jim. His eyes scanning his face looking for something that Jim was sure he wouldn’t find - Jim always seemed to be lacking when it came to critical moments like this. And it felt like a critical moment for unknown reasons. “I will see you next week Jim.” Spock finished. He gave a slight nod with his head before gathering his things and leaving with enough time for his 0930 class that Jim may or may not know about through illegal means. That warm buzzing in the back of his head faded as he left, but something about it told Jim that Spock might have found what he’d been looking for.


	9. Roomates & Revelations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY HOLIDAYS!! 
> 
> hope everyone is enjoying themselves!!  
> Just a quick chapter, may end up posting another one mid week (:

Apparently, Spock had predicted some of the things Trentworth would come up with when correcting the test because he’d delivered a copy of his proposed curriculum for the Fall semester with the direction to rework it to fit any ideas he had come up with prior. Jim didn’t doubt that Spock probably did the exact same thing with the corrected test now in his possession and in true Vulcan astuteness would compare both his and Jim’s ideas to create the best course possible.

Jim had decided to wait to even get into the PADD until he got of work and was kind of disappointed that more problem for him to solve weren’t involved. The lack of work meant Jim had already finished with and changed the code on the PADD by the time Bones had come home.

— \\\// —

Around the same time Bones became Jim’s primary physician was also the same year they got a new roommate.

Bones and his wife had been separated and working through a truly nasty divorce when Bones had enrolled in Starfleet. It hadn’t been his first choice, but he had been forced to sell his practice to pay for a lawyer to fight the custody battle for his daughter Johanna, whereas, Jocelyn’s coworker represented her. Things had been so drawn out that during his first semester enrolled at school Bones traveled to Georgia every other weekend.

Initially he’d filed for joint custody, first because he didn’t think Jocelyn, for all that he knew she was evil, would fight him on it, and second because before they separated Jo was almost always either with him or Jocelyn’s parents. His practice had been a good steady business with reasonable hours. He was home every night to have dinner with Jo and make sure she went to bed on time. She went to daycare most days but once a week, usually Friday if he could plan it, Bones would cover a shift at the hospital filling in for the general surgeon and Jo would go to spend the night with her grandparents. They hardly ever saw Jocelyn. She was to busy trying to climb up the ladder and kissing her boss’ ass at her law firm to spare them any mind.

It was after she missed Jo’s birthday for the second year in a row that he’d decided to file for divorce. His heart broken for his daughter crying tears into her cake instead of blowing out her candles because ‘momma promised she’d be here’. When she denied his request for joint custody while citing no particular reason, he decided to go all in.

He spent winter break in Georgia celebrating Christmas and packing up all Jo’s things.

Jim never even entertained the idea about Bones and Jo having to find somewhere else to live. Before Bones left, right after finals, he told Jim that they’d find a new place to live when they got back, he hadn’t had time between the court hearing and finals. Jim shut that down quick. He’d already broken Bones in as his best friend, nickname and everything, it’d be to inconvenient to try to break in another one. It was only Bones’ knowledge in some of Jim’s more obvious secrets that convinced the man to stick around.

— \\\// —

Since Jo moved in, Bones had followed a very simple routine for when he comes home and not even the introduction of Tom and Kev or the frequent occasion when Jim needs a lecture can deter him from it. He changes clothes, pours a tumbler of scotch and listens to Jo tell him about her day.

Today was rather uneventful. During the summer while the big kids are either in class or working on Jim assigned work at the Library, Jo goes to day camp. Her group went to the water park today, some boy dared another boy to pee in the pool, it was very juvenescent. Bones almost snorted out scotch at her, Jim knew that word a day toilet paper was a smart buy.

Sadly, she didn’t offer up enough of a distraction for her father, because soon Jim was being ‘asked’ about his day with a rather aggressive inflection. After Jo left the room, it wasn’t long before the whole story just poured out of him - it was a conditioned affect.

“Dammit, Jim! I thought you were suppose to be a genius? I mean I thought maybe you were interested in Spock, but not something like this!” Jim could only shrug, usually a means of deflection, and offered a sheepish smile. Except when Bones sighed and his face shifted to concern rather than outrage like he was suspecting, Jim felt his stomach drop. “Look kid, I’ve never mentioned this before but I think you know it anyways: your whole life, everything you’ve accomplished and built for yourself - it’s like a house of cards. One wrong move and the whole thing is going to come tumbling down. Now I’ve never understood why you’ve got yourself so secluded from everyone else or why you feel the need to keep so many secrets. But I know enough about Commander Spock, to know that one slip up and the whole things going to collapse.” Jim just nodded, the lump in his throat made it impossible to respond.

Truth was he wasn’t even sure why he was so caught up in secrecy, why he used it and the shroud of mystery it brought, to protect himself. All he knew was that he couldn’t go back into that spotlight. He didn’t want to be James T. Kirk: son of a hero, he didn’t want to be Jim Trentworth: the acclaimed genius. He just wanted to be Jim. He wanted people in his life who wanted to be there because of him personally, not because of his ‘fame’. He wanted someone to see the real him, and he couldn’t have that if they knew the truth. Despite the draw he felt toward Spock, the desire to get to know the man more, Jim couldn’t deny that Spock would probably find him lacking. Despite how high his IQ was, despite all he’d accomplished in his 22 years, Jim believed that no one would accept him without all the ‘glory’. And to quote an old 21st century saying: if they can’t handle him at his worst they didn’t deserve him at his best.


End file.
